Arrival at Malfoy Manor, Four Instances
by Niels van Eekelen
Summary: Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy are dealing with an arranged marriage while Lord Voldemort's rise to power asks more and more of their young family. To say that things in Malfoy Mansion are tense would be like saying the Death Eaters and the Ministry have some slight differences. Now, Lucius comes home.
1. Marital

Disclaimeris copyritus: All hail to J.K. Rowling.

**1**

**Marital**

_September 25th, 1979_

"Elf!"

Lucius Malfoy walked into the mansion built by (for) his ancestors in the foulest mood in his recent memory. The Dark Lord had got it in his head that there was a traitor among the Death Eaters, and they all who had been at the meeting had paid the price for it. Worst of all—paranoid the Dark Lord might be, but he always _knew_ things he shouldn't, couldn't. If someone leaked word of his involvement to the Ministry...

_Pop._

"Master is home!" One of his diminutive, ridiculous house-elves apparated right in front of where he was standing. _Perfect._ Lucius kicked out his leg, and the creature went flying. Its squeal damn near gave him a headache, but the _crunch_ as it hit the wall was quite satisfying.

"Where is my wife, elf?" he demanded.

"The Mistress is in the Dining Hall, Master." It looked at him fearfully from the ground. "The Mistress insisted on holding dinner until Master returned."

Lucius nodded. "Very good. I shall join her, then. Elf, go punish yourself for... for dirtying my boot." As he walked down the hallway, he checked that his robes were immaculate. There was no excuse for slovenliness.

At twenty-five, Lucius was already lord of his own manor. With his father gallivanting off through Europe, recruiting cursefodder for the Dark Lord's army, and with his mother long dead, he was the acting head of his family. He had been groomed for the responsibility since he was an infant. And with that responsibility came both power and obligation. Secure the family line. Marry.

A flick of his wand, and the doors to the dining hall swung open. His eyes searched the room and found his wife sitting at her end of the long table.

"Narcissa."

"Lucius," she greeted him back. "You are late, husband." She raised her fork and tapped it against her glass to produce a _pinggg._ Immediately, an elf appeared, and one snap of its fingers later, there were full plates on either end of the table.

"My apologies. It couldn't be helped." So soon after the Death Eater meeting, food turned his stomach, but he sat down and took up his fork and knife anyway. He would not give Narcissa a perceived victory.

Their marriage was a balance of power as delicate as that between the Ministry of Magic by day and Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters by night. The union, when Lucius was twenty and Narcissa Black still eighteen, had been arranged, of course. All proper marriages for people of their standing were. Still, it had been an arrangement of Narcissa's choosing—she had pursued him throughout their shared years at Hogwarts, and had had a strong hand in persuading the Blacks of the match. Not that Lucius had complained—the Blacks were perhaps the only British Wizarding family with roots deeper than the Malfoys, and Narcissa's beauty turned many envious eyes when she was on his arm.

Lucius watched his wife as he chewed on his venison. How quickly that potential had turned into a cold stalemate. There were few things they truly enjoyed in each other's company, now. Well, there were some.

He only knew that he was smirking when Narcissa raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"I think it's high time," Lucius said, "that we fulfil some of those conjugal obligations again tonight."

Oh, yes. Narcissa might have once been a Black—but she had mastered the Malfoy smirk like she had been born with it.

* * *

Like it? Then why not check out my original fantasy saga FULCRUM, available in e-book on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords, or start reading for free on my website TelltaleProductions dot nl (link in profile).


	2. Detente

Disclaimeris copyritus: All hail to J.K. Rowling.

**2**

**Detente**

_December 31st, 1979_

"Finally!"

Lucius slung his cloak into a corner of the entrance hall for the house-elves to clean up. The Minister's New Year's Eve luncheon had run on about three hours too long, and Lucius had wondered more than once if his wife had truly felt unwell when she had excused herself, or if she had foreseen the pompous bastard's endless speech.

But no, Narcissa had definitively looked greenish—it was exceptionally noticeable on her pale complexion.

And rather to his own surprise, Lucius found himself concerned. He marched through the mansion at a brisk pace to find his wife. She would be in her private chambers.

Perhaps it was the death of Cygnus Black, Narcissa's father, finally getting to her. She had carried on with an admirably stiff upper lip for the past two months, but Lucius knew how such things could fester. Then again, there had been no questions about the old bastard at the luncheon that Lucius heard—and he had been listening. They'd had a thrice-cursed job covering up the fact that Cygnus had died behind a Death Eater mask. The Auror who had killed and identified him had been clever enough to take precautions, and they had had to buy him off rather than simply kill him.

How ironic that it was her father's death that had brought Lucius and Narcissa closer. He had staged a properly dignified demise for the man, and Narcissa had been appreciative. Then they had begun having conversations, about her dead father, about his dead mother, and eventually, about anything.

He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. "Narcissa? Are you in here?"

"Lucius?" a weak for replied after a few seconds. "Come in. I'm in the bedroom."

Frowning, he went in and found Narcissa lying under the covers of her bed, looking pale. It would not do for her to get ill. Death Eater business was keeping him busy more than ever, now that the Dark Lord was obsessing over some damn prophecy or other, and he was increasingly counting on Narcissa to cover for his absences.

Still, there was more urgency in his voice than the Death Eater situation required when he asked, "How are you feeling?"

"Better, now," she replied. "I think it was the entrée."

"You think? You didn't do the spell?" He took out his wand. Unless it was something serious, a simple detection spell would give them a definitive answer.

"No!"

Lucius started at Narcissa's vehement response. "I am, in fact, capable of a simple spell such as this," he bit off.

"It's not that," she quickly reassured him. "Only… Well, I feel better already, I'm sure the spell wouldn't find a thing."

Considering how pale his wife looked still, Lucius was not exactly convinced of her reasoning, but he conceded the argument. It paid to do that occasionally in marriage. So he sat on the bed and leaned back against the headboard. Narcissa seemed surprised that he was staying, but pleased.

"I should have accompanied you home," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Merlin, but that speech was tedious. Do you remember Slughorn's Yule addresses, back at his parties at Hogwarts? Like that, only it lasted longer."

Narcissa's giggle sounded like birdsong, and Lucius smiled unconsciously when he heard it. "I tried to escape as soon as possible," he went on, "but after the luncheon, Nott dragged me along for celebratory drinks."

"Oh?"

"Ah, of course, you left before he mentioned—he got his wife pregnant again. Can you believe that? The Dark Lord is demanding more and more of us, the Ministry and that damnable Order is closer on our heels than they have ever been, and the fool thinks _this _is a wise time to throw some mewling babe into their lives!"

Narcissa had stopped laughing, and for a moment Lucius though it might have been something he said, but when he looked, he saw that she had gone as pale as the Bloody Baron again. Well, if she would not let him do that diagnostic spell, he couldn't help her.

* * *

Like it? Then why not check out my original fantasy saga FULCRUM, available in e-book on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords, or start reading for free on my website TelltaleProductions dot nl (link in profile).


	3. Breeding

Disclaimeris copyritus: All hail to J.K. Rowling.

**3**

**Breeding**

_March 12th, 1980_

"Damn them!"

Malfoy Manor was cloaked in darkness when Lucius entered, and the _incendio_ he sent towards the lamp rattled the thing so hard it nearly shattered.

If only he could have caught that… that_ boy… _Potter as easily. It had been Potter, Lucius was certain of it. Him and the traitor Black. A second team of Death Eaters had drawn away the Auror forces with a feint at Azkaban, and Lucius's strike force should have had a relatively easy job overwhelming Ministry security and raiding the Sub-department for Storage and Disposal of Unforgivable Artifacts.

But then those two had appeared out of nowhere to ambush them. They had worn masks, of course—the membership of that laughable 'Order of the Phoenix' was a tightly held secret to protect their families from Death Eater reprisals, but some of their more reckless members took little care with that. Worst of all, Lucius was reminded as he rubbed his bruised face, his own mask had been knocked off by a stray spell, and they might have seen him. Were Aurors on their way to the mansion right then? Would the Order have to find more evidence first? Had they even definitively identified him? He couldn't know for certain until he was in chains.

"Narcissa! We weren't done!" Of course, right before the night's disastrous mission, Lucius and Narcissa had got into a shouting match the likes of which most wizards would not believe the dignified Malfoy family was capable of. Lucius had half a mind to blame Narcissa for everything, for distracting him, but sadly him being distracted had nothing to do with whether Potter and Black could show up.

When he found her, he had worked himself into a worse rage than when he entered the mansion. He saw her running the tip of her wand over her stomach and just exploded.

"We weren't done! Narcissa, what in Mordred's name were you thinking! Now! When we could be discovered and in hiding or in Azkaban before we raised our wands!"

Narcissa's glare could have frozen a dragon's breath. "I am _certainly_ not raising my wand in combat, husband," she spat. "I was thinking that the temperature in our marriage was rising above the freezing point, and that my mother is increasingly and irritatingly impatient. My fault for mistaking simmering testosterone for affection. He's healthy, by the way. I was concerned—I felt unwell after all your screaming."

"I've _told_ you what a precarious time this is, woman! Merlin, I may tell you more than any other Death Eater does his wife! I… He?" He stopped abruptly. Narcissa's smirk did not go unnoticed.

Some emotion filled Lucius that he had never felt before. _An heir…_ He shook it off and glared at Narcissa. The woman had probably purposely distracted him.

"Yes, your future son. If you have a moment in between killing mudbloods, watch the night sky for a constellation. We're naming him in my family's tradition."

"We'll see about that!" Lucius growled. Still, it happened again. _A son…_ Disgustedly, Lucius shook his head. He noticed the arm of his robe, still covered in blood. The debt Severus owed him now for dragging the younger man out of the Ministry alive after he took that curse was the only good thing to come out of the night.

He had better go change.

"We'll discuss this later," he told Narcissa brusquely, turning away. The idiot woman. As if he didn't have enough to worry about already, without a child.

A child…

* * *

Like it? Then why not check out my original fantasy saga FULCRUM, available in e-book on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords, or start reading for free on my website TelltaleProductions dot nl (link in profile).


	4. Empty

Disclaimeris copyritus: All hail to J.K. Rowling.

**4**

**Empty**

_June 5th, 1980_

"Please…"

It was not often that a Malfoy—or any respectable Pureblood—begged, let alone to nameless Gods. But it was not often that times were this desperate.

"Narcissa! Elves, you useless creatures!" Lucius limped into the mansion, leaning on an improvised cane, his left knee refusing to bend properly. It had been an ambush—not just for a Death Eater, or just for Lucius Malfoy, but for Lucius Malfoy the Death Eater, he was certain of it. They _knew._ The Order of the Phoenix knew.

And here was the Malfoy Mansion, every room still lit, but seemingly abandoned. Lucius had sensed that the anti-apparition wards were gone as soon as he had apparated right outside the front door. But there were other defensive spells in place, and those hadn't been triggered. Had his enemies managed to bypass them somehow?

"Narcissa!"

_Clack, clack, clack._

The impact of his cane on the floor echoed through empty halls. He was moving too slowly. Someone should be here. An elf, at least—what were the creatures good for, if not that? As fast as he could, Lucius made a straight line towards Narcissa's rooms.

He wished now that the two of them hadn't fought so much during the past months, ever since he had learned of Narcissa's… rash decision. Foolish woman. Lucius thought of the period when their marriage had been steadily improving with increasing fondness—but a child? In the middle of war? Half his acquaintances appeared to be having babies, but admittedly half his acquaintances were quite mad.

Her door was ajar. It was never ajar—women's rooms should be closed off, for propriety's sake, that's what Narcissa always said, even as she ignored Lucius bursting in whenever he pleased.

He would have broken out in a run if he had been able to, then, but when he reached the door and saw the room, it was too soon. It was a mess. Clothes lay strewn about as if someone had searched the closet. Narcissa's nightstand lay knocked over. They had been here. Taken Narcissa.

Lucius fell to his knees and let himself believe that it was because his injured knee gave out. He could not be certain of anything, of course, but what else could have happened here? The house-elves wouldn't—_couldn't_—have abandoned the mansion of their own accord.

"Narcissa… What am I supposed to do without you?" It came out as a whisper, and he had no answer. Lucius knew he had no time to waste, but still he sat there for he didn't know how long.

"Lucius?" a weak voice spoke behind him.

He was on his feet in an instant, wobbling until he grabbed hold of the bed to steady himself, and for a few long seconds, he could not comprehend what he saw. Finally he said, "Narcissa?"

She stood there like a pale vision, surrounded by every single one of the family house-elves, which seemed to be falling over each other in their attempts to be the ones supporting his wife.

"Are you all right?"

It was her asking him.

Lucius shook his head to clear it. "Fine. I'm fine. You… What…"

"It started very suddenly," she started, almost hesitantly. "The house-elves… well, I think they panicked, with the state I was in—there was blood. They tore down the anti-apparition wards to take me to St. Mungo's…"

She went on, but Lucius felt momentarily overwhelmed with relief. He had seen his life without Narcissa, those long minutes or hours. All his power and influence had never before felt… empty.

Then he blinked and wondered how he could not have seen the tiny bundle Narcissa was holding tightly against her chest. He stepped forward and pulled aside a corner of the blanket it was wrapped in.

Narcissa paused in the middle of her explanations, and the rare smile was audible in her voice when she said, "Lucius, meet your heir."

That was when Lucius decided to kiss his wife. It lasted, and the passion was only contained by the tiny, sleeping form in between their bodies. After, they looked at each other, then at the child, then at each other again.

"But Lucius, what happened to you?" Narcissa said, finally. "You've been injured!"

"Never mind all that now, Narcissa," said Lucius. "Welcome back home. And welcome to Malfoy Manor, young Draco Malfoy."

_fin_

* * *

Like it? Then why not check out my original fantasy saga FULCRUM, available in e-book on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords, or start reading for free on my website TelltaleProductions dot nl (link in profile).


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